Departments are a required element of your Portal, and User management. Each User is required to be associated with a Department. A User may only be associated with one Department at a time. Departments can break into different Sub-Departments that mirror reporting structures or divisions in an organization or team.

Departments are distinct from Groups:

• A User is required to be in a Department. Department selection is mandatory for User creation.
  
  • Groups are optional, and do not need to be used or assigned.
• A User may only be associated with one Department at a time.
  • A User may be associated with multiple Groups simultaneously.

This article covers creating and managing Departments in your Portal.

Considerations

It is strongly recommended to use unique names for each Department. Duplicate names will cause administration to become difficult.

If you have a Data Import Integration and the source of truth has duplicate Department names, we recommend adding the Department code or some other way to identify them to the end of each duplicate name.

If you are adding new Users to a Department and have a Blended Billing Model, a tool tip will state whether the Department you've selected has Internal or External Billing applied. Please ensure you have selected the correct Department and the Department has the expected Billing Type.

Creating Departments

This section will guide you through the process of creating a new Department.

1. Access the Admin Experience.
2. Open the Users menu and select Departments.
   
3. Click the Add Department Action on the right hand side.
   
4. Enter the Name for your new Department.
   
5. Select the Parent Department by clicking Select Department and using the selector.
   
6. Configure other details if required. When finished, click Save.
   

Parent Department

When creating a new Department, it will always exist underneath another Department in a hierarchical structure, such as the example below:

The first new Department created in a Portal, will exist underneath the default Department of your Portal, in this example it would be Company Name. Departments may share the same Parent Department such as it is with Marketing, Operations and Finance in the example. 

When selecting a Department, the arrow next to a Department name will expand the list of options below it.

External ID

External ID is an optional field that can be used to hold a value your organization requires. This value may be referenced by an Integration.

Use Department Contact Details

A toggle that when enabled displays three additional fields:

• Company Name
• Email Address
• Phone Number

Information entered here will be used when sending messages to Learners in this Department.

Message Template Image

Add an image which can be configured for Message Templates. The image will be set for Learners in this Department.

Field Values

Underneath the General section, is the Field Values section. The fields in this section are optional, and allow you to define a value for Users in this Department.

Selecting any of the options in this section will apply the value to all Users created in the Department.

Assigning Users to Departments

Once you have created your new Department, the next step will be to assign Users to it. This section details how to manually add Users to a Department:

1. Access the Admin Experience.
2. Open the Users Menu from the left hand side and select Users.
   
3. Select a User from the list you want to add to a Department.
   
4. Use the Edit User Action from the right-hand side.
   
5. Under the General tab of the Edit User page, click Select Department.
   
6. Once you have selected the preferred Department, don't forget to Save.

Bulk Assigning Users

It is possible to select multiple Users instead of just one, and change the Department of each of them at the same time.

With multiple Users selected from the Users Report, use the Change Department Action from the right hand side. This will allow you to select a new Department for the Users.

Don't forget to Save once the Department has been selected.

Deleting Departments

When attempting to delete a Department, you may receive an error message that indicates something is preventing the Department from being deleted. For example, since all Users are required to belong to a Department, you must move all Users out of a Department before deleting it.

The following scenarios will prevent a Department from being deleted:

In all of these cases, the following error message will appear and indicate what is preventing it from being deleted:

User Management By Department

You are able to assign an Admin to manage the Users within a Department or a Department and it's related Sub-Departments. To assign an Admin to a Department, follow these steps:

1. Access the Admin Experience.
2. Open the Users Menu from the left hand side and select Users.
   
3. Select and edit the Admin you want to assign to a Department.
4. Under the Account section, select Department for User Management.
   
5. Define a Rule that points to the Department or Sub-Departments you want for the Admin by clicking Add Rule and using the Department selector.
   
6. Click Save when your changes are complete.

Best Practice Tips

This section contains additional information that may benefit the configuration of Departments in your Portal.

Departments vs Groups

Departments are a required feature which is used to organize and classify Users. Users can only be in one Department, and also must belong to one.

Groups are an optional feature that can be used in instances where your Department structure does not capture a subset of Users that you need to administrate or report on. Users can be in more than one Group, or none.

Here are a few scenarios that will guide you through deciding whether you should use a Department or a Group in certain situations:

Structure Examples

Departments are arranged in a hierarchical parent-child relationship. Most reports, settings and rules in Absorb can reference a specific Department, or a Department along with its Sub-Departments.

Groups can be set up using automatic filtering rules and Users that meet those rules will be automatically added to that Group.

In the Groups report there are no child or parent associations. The report displays an overview of the number of Users in each, how the Users are added, as well as created and edited dates. Unlike Departments, Groups are primarily used for performing bulk actions on otherwise unrelated Users.

For example, to offer specific training to Managers across Departments, you could create an Automatic Group based on the User Field “Job Title” containing “Manager”. You could then set Availability Rules on Courses, Resources, Billboards, etc. that would only be accessible to those that meet the requirements of that Group, regardless of their Department.

Internal vs External Departments

There are a few different methods of separating Internal Users from External Users in Absorb. The recommended way to achieve this is to first create two new Departments called Internal and External. If you are selling Course content or are administrating your LMS for your own clients, it may be valuable to consider this use-case.

There are a few different methods of separating Internal Users from External Users in Absorb. The recommended way to achieve this is to first create two new Departments called Internal and External. Place these new Departments immediately after the highest level Department in your hierarchy. The highest level Department in your LMS is referred to as the Root Department. Next, place any internal employees under the Internal Department, and any external Users such as your Clients under the External Department. If you sell Courses through E-Commerce, you could add those Users to the External Department stream as well.

One method for creating a unique experience for different groups of Users in Absorb is to create and use separate URLs, separately or in conjunction with custom branding and Department Templates based on the Department that the Users are in.

As an example, we could have one Department called, Internal, set up to access Absorb using a custom URL, login page, and see a custom design specific to the Department. Our second, External Department would access Absorb using an altogether different custom URL, and see a different login page, and custom design specific to their Department. Here is a visual example of this Department structure:

There are many benefits of structuring your Departments this way. For example, you can create custom URL Routes for the Internal and External Department streams in order to create a unique experience. You can also create new Department Templates for unique dashboard branding on the Learner Interface. You will need to contact your Client Success Manager or Account Manager to have new URL routes created.

If you have a Blended Billing Model and are assigning Users to a Department, a tool tip will state whether the Department you've selected has Internal or External Billing applied. Please ensure you have selected the correct Department and the Department has the expected Billing Type.

Roles and Permissions

Below are the required Role Permissions Admins will need to View and/or Modify Message Templates within the LMS and the suggested Role Permissions Admins may want to have in combination of what is required.

Please note that your environment may use customized Roles, Permissions, or a combination of both to perform these activities. If you have questions or need assistance, please contact your local System Administrator to review your current permissions.

Required Role Permissions

Suggested Role Permissions